Little Green Footballs

Friday, April 29, 2005

U.S. investigators hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have found no evidence that such material was moved to Syria for safekeeping before the war, according to a final report of the investigation released yesterday.

Although Syria helped Iraq evade U.N.-imposed sanctions by shipping military and other products across its borders, the investigators "found no senior policy, program, or intelligence officials who admitted any direct knowledge of such movement of WMD." Because of the insular nature of Saddam Hussein's government, however, the investigators were "unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials."

The Iraq Survey Group's main findings -- that Hussein's Iraq did not possess chemical and biological weapons and had only aspirations for a nuclear program -- were made public in October in an interim report covering nearly 1,000 pages. Yesterday's final report, published on the Government Printing Office's Web site ( http://www.gpo.gov ), incorporated those pages with minor editing and included 92 pages of addenda that tied up loose ends on Syria and other topics.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Charles Johnson holds up as further evidence that the media are biased against Israel a Reuters report about the case of a Palestinian taxi driver who ran over an Israeli and was promptly shot dead by IDF soldiers (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15621).

Why does this demonstrate Reuters' bias? Why, clearly the fact that Reuters gave the story the headline "Palestinian, Israeli Killed at West Bank Roadblock" indicates that they are on the side of the Palestinian, because the Pali MUST have hit the Israeli on purpose, and the IDF only shot him in self-defence, but the headline makes it seem like both are 'equal' victims.

The problem with this reading is that it says more about the bias of Charles 'Icarus' Johnson, than about Reuters. The headline, in fact, is perfectly neutral. Two people killed at road block: one Palestinian, one Israeli.

What is more, if Charles had done some digging on this story he might have found that the version of events where the Palestinian deliberately hit and killed the Israeli is disputed. In fact, the IDF itself has suggested that the Israeli may have been killed by friendly fire, not by the taxi. But minor details (alright, lets call them FACTS) like this don't concern CJ when he's got another piece of so-called NEWS to put on his weblog. Just don't moan if Google ignores you, Charlie-boy...

UPDATE: It took Charles only 48 hours to get the red hot news out to his lizard loons that Israeli soldier Tziki Eyal WAS in fact shot dead by his fellow soldiers (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15656). Of course, the LGF crew still maintains it was the Palestinian's fault because he clearly wanted to run over Eyal. Proof? None needed. And a retraction of his comments about "al-Reuters"? No, not from Charles...

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Charles Johnson just can't get enough of Rachel Corrie...her death, that is. A new play that has opened in London has given him the perfect opportunity to dance on her grave once again, and display his general disdain for those killed trying to bring justice to the disposessed (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15604).

BTW, is it a coincidence that, for all his posturing about how the removal of Saddam was a humanitarian act, he hasn't once mentioned Fern Holland, a fellow American who was killed while trying to help the people of Iraq? Presumably she wasn't enough of a 'civilian contractor', like those Blackwater folks, or else Charlie would have called a week of mourning on LGF...

Charles Johnson is rather selective when it comes to highlighting instances of "child abuse" on his weblog, Littlegreenfootballs.com. It seems that in the world of LGF, child abuse only ever happens in Palestine.

Of course, Johnson is simply using these kinds (or rather pictures of them) to serve his own ends, regardless of what the background story is. When pictures turn up of little African kids bearing guns, Charles Johnson doesn't give a damn.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

CJ dishes up another scary story for his followers today, one that supports their paranoid nightmare that Mooooooslims have infiltrated the US and are planning to Dolchstoss it in the back (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15513).

This particular story comes from a certain Laura Mansfield, who claims to be associatated with the 'Northeast Intelligence Network' ("founded by veteran private investigator Douglas J. Hagmann") and who has a story to tell about how she infiltrated a mosque in 'Smalltown, USA' where nasty things were being said about America and Americans.

Problem is, for all the terror-inspiring words that were spoken in this den of hate, Laura keeps very coy about its exact location. She merely reveals that it is "a small mosque in a small town in the deep South". Now if we are to believe the words of one person about the happenings in this mosque, surely it would help if we knew which mosque she had 'infiltrated', and when. But we don't. So it remains hearsay. Still, that's enough to make the 'News' on Little Green Footballs...

Life's not all blogsurfing and taking the mickey out of Charlie Johnson, so would everyone who has been emailing us about why LGFWatch hasn't updated for five days please give us a break: we've got day jobs (and some of us have night jobs) and the last few days have been very busy. Expect some LGFwatching soon. In the meantime:

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

LGF lizard leader Charles Johnson likes to accuse news organisations of 'bias' on the basis of what he thinks their headlines imply or downplay. Well, yesterday CJ exposed himself to accusations of hypocrisy, when he posted an entry on his weblog about a hostage-taking incident in Germany involving four schoolkids and an Iranian (in LGF-speak read MUSLIM) man: (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15427)

Charles' reason for highlighting this incident aren't clear. Uncharitable readers might think it's just another opportunity to paint Muslims as violent crazies. More charitable readers might say Charles is merely picking up on a big news story. But if this were the case, why did Charles make NO MENTION of the shooting dead of five pupils and staff at Red Lake high school in Minnesota (which is a hell of a lot closer to California than Germany is) by student Jeff Weise three weeks ago. Could it be because, you know, Jeff wasn't MUSLIM enough?

Luckily some of Charles' readers (read 1:10) are wising up to his sickening prejudices and saying so or leaving LGF.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

One of our trusted readers sent us an email today, asking why Charles was making such a fuss about another AP article (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15377).

Charles took particular offence at what in his eyes was a "ridiculously slanted headline". What did the headline read? It was: 'Israeli Troops Kill 3 Palestinian Teens'.

Charles, how blinkered can you get? The headline is a statement of fact. If it had read 'Israeli Troops Kill 3 Terrorists' or 'Israeli Troops Kill 3 Innocent Teens' you might be able to accuse AP of writing a biased headline, but the one that did appear was nothing but the truth: Israeli Troops. Killed. Three. Palestinian. Teenagers. Fact.

Of course Charles 'death cult violence junkies' Johnson could never, ever be accused of writing slanted copy. No, the man from Southern California knows EXACTLY what's going on in the Middle East every minute of the day, and death to the infidels who suggest otherwise...

Charles posts further 'proof' that Democratic Underground "really are sick" by linking to a item on DU about psychics predicting Bush won't be prez anymore in the fall. CJ says this shows the DU are "wishing for the death of the President".

The problem is, the DU post doesn't talk about the death of the president. It talks about the impeachment of the president - which isn't really the same thing, is it? Never mind, reading accuracy was never Charles' strong point...

2) The Ugly American Left (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15359)

Chazza complains that he's just read "one of the ugliest comment threads I’ve ever seen" over on Washington Monthly. Why is it so ugly? Well, some of the commentators say LGF should be banned. Faaar uglier than the kind of racist claptrap a la 'nuke em all' Bigel you'll find on the average LGF comment thread, we're sure you'll agree...

3) On the same LGF post, a lovable little lizard called Geepers says (#35):

And how else do the cowards of LGF Watch spend their time in "exposing" our rabid racism?

That's right, by actively encouraging their readers to SPAM LGF

pointing to our offer of a free Gmail invite to anyone who wants one. Except, of course, the suggestion that people use it to spam LGF didn't feature. Instead, the Gmail account was described as providing "even more space for lizard spam" - meaning that even if you get 50 emails from the lizards every hour, you'll still not run out of space in your mailbox. But that must have gone WAY over the head of Mr G...

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

On Sunday Charles Johnson proudly linked to an item on another weblog about an incident that was taking/had taken place on a BA plane due to fly from Heathrow to Boston (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15304).

The incident in question was 'reported' (i.e. parroted) by Charles as involving the removal of "multiple passengers [...] from the plane by force." Charles' sole journalistic contribution was to find another weblog skeptical of the incident, and to look up the British Airways arrival schedule to verify how long the plane would be delayed by.

Way to go Charles. That certainly qualifies you for the Pulitzer, maybe even inclusion on Google News!

We at LGFWatch took a closer look at the incident. We called BA and were told that:

One passenger on the flight had requested permission to disembark

He had provided insufficient reason for this

Cabin staff (quite sensibly, we think) called Heathrow police

Heathrow police (who are always armed, unlike 'normal' police in Britain) boarded the plane and escorted the passenger in question as well as another passenger (presumably someone he was travelling with) off the plane

What happened next appears to be a little less clear: presumably all passengers were escorted off the plane while a security search was carried out before the plane was given permission to continue its journey. This would seem to be standard procedure given the circumstances BUT WE CAN'T VERIFY THIS, as BA had no information beyond the fact that the plane took off four hours behind schedule.

Next, we called the British police. They were able to tell us the following:

At around 17:00 BST Heathrow police were called to an incident on a BA flight from London to Boston.

Officers spoke to two men

No arrests were made

Now all of this points to a minor, if somewhat unusual, incident. It's understandable that other passengers were worried and annoyed by what had happened. What isn't understandable is why Charles Johnson and his lizard cronies immediately launch into 'kick the MSM' mode when they themselves are ignorant of the facts. Why not start with the assumption that the incident was TOO UNIMPORTANT to merit further attention by the MSM beyond perhaps an initial inquiry to BA and/or the police? But of course that wouldn't fit into the lizards' think-pattern. Far easier to blame the MSM for doing a lousy job/keeping the public in the dark, than to do some research yourself and follow up a story you made such a fuss about in the beginning.

God praise bloggers, the scourge of the professional newsgathering industry...

Woweee, Google has given us even more space for lizard spam now that they've quietly upped the storage of Gmail inboxes to 2Gb. Any LGFWatch readers out there want to join the Gmail fun, just drop us a line (lgfwatch@gmail.com) and we'll send you an extra-special personal invitation from our stack of blank ones.